"The social system of private property and limited government is the only system that tends to debarbarize all those who have the innate capacity to acquire personal culture."
~Ludwig von Mises

Aug 4, 2011

Barton Biggs on the reason for the big August selloff

There's no question that the original reason was the lack of confidence in the authorities, in other words, the politicians and their ability to deal with this thing. The Europeans did not do a big enough package to solve their sovereign debt issue and we have had this and we [the US] had this really half-assed compromise where we didn't really deal with the entitlements issue. So, there's been a loss of confidence but I am astounded at how severe the reaction has been.